When Am I Supposed to Get Work Done? Thursday? Friday? Use Your Noggin…

The key to any successful plan is a solid strategy. That allows you to better adjust when the flow doesn’t go as expected. My strategy going into this week was to (1) Jam as much work into Monday through early Wednesday as possible; (2) find some Notre Dame guy to help out with handicapping the Irish; (3) parry all work obligations as best a possible from after lunch Wednesday until Monday.

So far, so good. The Notre Dame guy even found me (more on that in coming days). For now, we have some additional randomness. This comes as a result of falling behind on my reading and studying, choosing to do those things that allow me to buy Stella…and groceries.

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You want to know about the teams in the tourney you don’t follow? This is your guide. Sure, it is a shameless plug, but that doesn’t lessen the quality of the material.

Second shameless plug: the big cheese of CAA: LAMM will be chatting mid majors and this Big Dance thing on Wednesday at 2:30 at ESPN.com. Details on that one to come.

“I’m intrigued to see what GMU’s game plan is going to be. Do they push the tempo, like they did at the beginning of the season against Kansas State and Nova? Notre Dame can certainly be run on, they give a lot of points up. Do they grind it out, like they’ve done in CAA play? I’m not sure that would work. Either way, they’re going to have to stop ND’s 3’s.”

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I’ve done everything I can, which includes (and this is the truth) having my new cast done in “that” blue, but I cannot figure out how Kentucky is in this field. I just cannot. No, I’m not ready to let that go. And for you moronic dullards doubters of unbiased writing, this has nothing to do with VCU.

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Mids I like to win, with actual choices coming at another time: St. Joe’s (11), Mason (12), Winthrop (13), South Alabama (10), Siena (13), Davidson (10), and St. Mary’s (10).

There’s been a pile of talk of mid-on-mid crime and a committee set up, but I don’t know if that’s really possible. As is its wont, the NCAA has 4,628 rules governing who can play whom, and I don’t know that there’s the time nor the logistics to get something like that done.

Then again, the past two seasons have offered up some curious first round games, no?

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I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that ODU was “selected” to play in the first annual CBI. I say selected in quotes because ODU gets to host a game by putting up guaranteed money.

I’ll be rooting for Blaine Taylor and the Monarchs over Rider. They have a huge advantage playing at home and not adding travel to the logistical issues with this tournament.

So, I can get people to pay me to play in my tournament? Next season–the First Annual CAA: LAMM Invitational. Majors need not apply.

That has a ring.

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Brilliance, by Gary Parrish at CBS Sports (or whatever they are calling sportsline these days)…we’re going to get into this RPI mess soon enough, but this is very good work on his part:

We always talk about the importance of the RPI, but it seems to work only one way for the non-BCS schools. If you have a bad one, you’re screwed. But if you have a good one … you might still be screwed. For proof, consider that the three teams with the highest RPIs that were omitted this season were No. 32 Dayton, No. 33 Illinois State and No. 42 UMass. Last year, it was No. 30 Air Force, No. 36 Missouri State and No. 38 Bradley. Year before that, it was No. 21 Missouri State, No. 30 Hofstra and No. 39 Creighton. Year before that, it was No. 39 Miami-Ohio, No. 45 Wichita State and No. 46 Buffalo. And I’m OK with it all, honest. But it is difficult to understand why the committee seems to believe it must have Arizona based on its RPI of 37 when I’m pretty certain if Northern Arizona had an RPI of 37 it would have no shot to earn an at-large bid.